


Unfathomable (or, Gerard Keay's Ever Increasing Hatred for the Color Yellow)

by SkeletalConstellation



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: ALRIGHT I THINK THATS ALL THE BIG IMPORTANT TAGS, Abusive Parents, Angst and Humor, Aside from Michael who is a monster, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Needs Therapy, Gerry gets beat up by monsters on a regular basis, Gerry is definitely not coping well, Gertrude feeds michael to a fear being, Grief/Mourning, Human/Monster Romance, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Loss of Identity, Loss of Trust, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Monster Hunters, Monsters, Oh wait, and I sort of want to eat you but also don't, and who may attempt to eat the therapist, and you are trying to kill me, how romantic, its all kinda sad tbh, meetcute: I am a monster made of fractals wearing your dead boyfriend's face, nothing major just Gerry reminiscing on some better times, same shit as always, the spiral does spiral things, there we go, who knows how the spiral works, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkeletalConstellation/pseuds/SkeletalConstellation
Summary: Gerard Keay never liked the color yellow, be it the overly cheerful soft brightness of butter or the burning, blaring hazardousness of neon. Even (or maybe especially) the soft, straw-golden shade of honeyed curls of hair.But by far, the yellow he hated the most has been the ever unfathomable, painfully pleasant shade of paint on that damned door that has started to appear everywhere it shouldn't be.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 25
Kudos: 256





	Unfathomable (or, Gerard Keay's Ever Increasing Hatred for the Color Yellow)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay okay okay okay OKAY so this has been a little guilty pleasure project of mine, and I am so so SO very excited to bring it to yall at long last

Gerard Keay never liked the color yellow, be it the overly cheerful soft brightness of butter or the burning, blaring hazardousness of neon- even (or maybe especially) the soft, straw-golden shade of honeyed curls of hair. But by far, the yellow he hated the most has been the ever unfathomable, painfully pleasant and undeniably  _ wrong _ shade of paint on that damned door that has started to appear everywhere it shouldn't be.

When the first instance of the door had appeared, however, he was more amused by it than anything. It had appeared about five feet up a wall which, given said wall had no other doors of its variety, was a dead giveaway. If Gerry hadn't been so hardened to what the horrors were capable of, he might have even laughed at the sheer absurdity of it (as it was, and as  _ he _ was, he merely cracked what could have been the beginnings of a smirk). He saw no reason to confront it at the moment- it was obviously a trap of s

Of course, this was an hour before he was told over the phone that Gertrude Robinson had succeeded in her task in Russia and that, although she had left with someone, she would return alone.

Before Gerard Keay really, truly despised the color yellow.

  
  


_ Although Gerard Keay had never been much of a fan of yellow, the man in front of him seemed much more partial to the color, given that he was dressed almost entirely in it. _

_ He had a goldenrod woolen vest over a buttery yellow button up, complete with a loosely knotted bow tie in a mellow shade of sunflower. Even his snarled ratsnest of long, very curly hair was a light strawberry blonde, like straw caught in the late afternoon sun on a midsummer's day. Gerry half expected the man's eyes to be yellow, no matter how improbable that was- but no, they were cloud-grey and nervous as they scanned over Gerry. _

_ "I- I'm sorry, we don't allow members of the general public down here," he mumbled, wringing his delicate-looking hands fretfully. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sir…" _

_ Gerry looked him up and down, sizing him up. He was tall, taller than Gerry by a not insignificant margin. The majority of his height was in his legs, and in combination with his long arms and short torso he looked a bit like he'd been put together from pieces of two different men. His face, however, had a certain natural kindness to it that gave Gerry pause. It was the kind of face he'd expect on a children's librarian, or perhaps a volunteer at an animal shelter. It was, however  _ not _ the face of someone who worked in this field- which meant either the archive had lured in another unfortunate soul, or this man was harboring something darker, something more dangerous. _

_ He honestly couldn't decide which was preferable. _

_ "Sir-" _

_ "Mmm. Yeah. Don't think I'll be leaving so soon," he hummed, leaning broodily against the nearest filing cabinet. "Got something to give your Archivist, was told she'd be down here." Of course, he hadn't really been told. He knew Gertrude's patterns well enough to know where she'd be. _

_ The man seemed to relax slightly, though he was still wary- seemed he was smarter than Gerry had thought. "Oh! Ah- give me one moment, I'll- I'll go fetch her for you, Mister…" _

_ "Gerard Keay, and you?" _

_ "Oh, ah… Michael. Michael Shelley." _

_ "Michael… I'll remember that. You new?" _

_ "Just started working two weeks ago, why?" _

_ "Oh, no reason." _

_ Two weeks. _

_ He couldn't help but wonder how much longer he'd last here. _

  
  


Gerry was fine, he insisted on it. He was never one to grieve.

After all, grief  _ didn't _ look like him lying face up on the sidewalk, rain-soaked and near-blackout drunk, on a Tuesday at three in the morning.

Which was a perfectly normal time to be lying drunk on the sidewalk in the rain. He'd decided to do this to himself, and as such, it wasn't grief.

He raised a hand to his face, trying to rub some of the rain off him in vain- it, of course, just kept raining and getting him wet again- and afford himself a rare moment of self pity. God, he was a mess. Third time this week he'd gotten hammered beyond recognition, and it had only been Tuesday for three hours now. 

Despite his intoxication, the rain was starting to bug him, and he decided he would much rather be home and in bed than passed out on the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

As has slowly turned onto his side, he heard his keys jingle as they fell out of his pocket and onto the road, narrowly avoiding the storm drain. Cursing, he leaned over the curb to grab them.

His eyes caught a glint of impossibly bright yellow, and he froze in place.

Inside the storm drain was a yellow door.

_ The _ yellow door.

He sighed deeply, a growl catching at the corners of his voice. 

"You… I wan' nothin' to do wi'h you, y'hear?" He slurred, shakily pushing himself to his knees. "Nothin'... You, you an' your… your…  _ yellow _ can fuck right off for all I care…"

The door, of course, said nothing, just sat in its impossibly saturated brightness in the storm grate below him. Gerry sniffed, deciding he won that argument and standing up on wobbly legs to start the stumble home. He ignored the warmth streaking down his cheeks as he walked. 

_ Just the rain, _ he lied to himself.  _ Always just the rain. _

  
  


_ "Michael? You in there somewhere?" _

_ A golden-haired head popped out of the massive mess of papers, blinking owlishly at Gerry with such a look of confusion and guilt that Gerry couldn't help but chuckle.  _

_ "Oh- Gerard, I- I didn't expect you to be here so quickly, I apologise for the mess-" _

_ "What happened here? Did a bomb go off while I was away?" _

_ Michael shook his head, a paper that had been stuck in his hair going flying. "Nothing that drastic- I just… well, I might have misfiled a statement, and now Gertrude wants it and, ah, I may be unable to find it." _

_ "So you dumped out all the filing cabinets in search of a single document?" _

_ "Well when you put it that way," he mumbled, a reddish tint settling across his face, "I… suppose there would be better ways to do this…" _

_ Gerry's smile softened as he saw the bashful look on Michael's face, and he found himself stooping to pick up a few files from the mess and neatly stack them. "Hey, chin up. Let's get this cleaned up before Gertrude gets back, yeah? Best to stay on her good side in my personal experience, lord knows I wouldn't want to cross her." _

_ That made Michael laugh a bit, his voice like music to Gerry's ears. "Come on," he giggled, his strawberry blonde hair bouncing with each shake of his shoulders. "She's not  _ that _ bad- a little old fashioned, sure, but certainly not as horrible as you make her out to be!" _

_ Gerry rolled his eyes as he picked up another file, starting to quietly sort them by subject. He could tell Michael was watching him, probably with that same deer-in-the-headlights stare as always. "Come on," he murmured, gently coaxing the archival assistant to follow suit. "Let's get this mess figured out, and if we get it done quickly we can still go for coffee, yeah?" _

_ Michael smiled in meek appreciation, and Gerry felt something deep in his chest, petrified by years alone and unloved, go butter-soft. _

_ "Deal." _

  
  


Gerry almost stumbled straight through the yellow door, ever where it shouldn't be, this time embedded in the preexisting door to the bathroom of the dingy little bar he'd found himself in tonight.

He registered the color of the paint a moment after turning the knob, and he let go as if it had burned him- it hadn't, of course, which meant it wasn't the Desolation's door, a small comfort in his drunken state.

He felt the alcohol in his veins fuel the spark of anger at the door, at what it represented, the same saturated cheeryness as the day he had lost everything he had left in the world.

"Who… who the  _ fuck  _ are you," he growled through gritted teeth, backed up against the wall adjacent to the door. 

The door, slightly ajar, was silent, until, suddenly (and yet with much anticipation), Gerry watched it creak open slightly more.

A hand- or rather, something that was  _ not _ a hand, was nothing like a hand, and yet was somehow only describable as a hand- reached out, its long fingers, each with far more knuckles than any hand should ever have, wrapping themselves around the doorframe. 

And then, equally out of place, a second hand appeared.

"Oh  _ fuck no _ , you're not trying any of this shit right now," Gerry snarled, grabbing his lighter from his pocket and raising it defensively at the door. "I'm tired, I'm drunk as shit, and I can't fuckin'  _ deal  _ with you lot- no leitners, no monsters, and  _ especially _ not  _ you." _

The door creaked open slightly more, and with a few colorful words Gerry split, bolting as fast as his legs could carry him out the back exit and away from whatever _ thing _ lived behind that stubborn yellow door.

It was cowardice to run, and he knew it, but he also knew he couldn't deal with a monster right now, not with this mess of alcohol and emotions he seemed to always be when the door found him.

He didn't realize until much, much later that he had left the door ajar.

  
  


_ Gerry could feel Michael's fingers digging into his arm as the restaurant they'd been sitting in not half an hour ago burned to the ground, the corruption that had taken hold in the establishment smouldering along with it. _

_ He watched the smoke pour from within, the smell of burning filth and rot filling the air in choking black columns.  _

_ He watched it burn for a few moments longer, ensuring nothing escaped the flames, before turning to an incredibly shaken Michael. _

_ His golden tangle of hair had ash in it, his shirt, once a pure saffron, stained with grey-black soot. He was trembling, staring unblinking at what had been the restaurant. Gerry brushed a stray hair from Michael's face, drawing the attention of the archival assistant back to the monster hunter.  _

_ "Are you hurt?" _

_ Michael glanced over himself, then shook his head, his eyes remaining cast to the ground. He was still stunned by the ordeal in the restaurant, and despite knowing it had been necessary Gerry felt sorry for him. _

_ "Uh… I guess I should apologize for ruining our first official date, shouldn't I?" _

_ Michael finally glanced up, wide-eyed, and immediately tried to put the blame on himself. "Don't be sorry, I- I mean, I suggested this place, and I put in the booking, so-" _

_ "Yeah, but you  _ didn't _ set the place on fire, Michael. That was all me." _

_ "You had to, though! The corruption-" _

_ Michael started rambling on frantically, suddenly animated in stark contrast to the stunned stillness mere moments before. He put his hands on the other man's cheeks, instantly drawing his attention back to Gerry and making him trail off back into speechlessness. _

_ "It's not your fault," Gerry reaffirmed, more gently than he would have had Michael been any other person. "Just another occupational hazard, okay? All part of the job." _

_ Michael slowly nodded, staring doe-eyed at Gerry, and Gerry was suddenly met with the reality of how close they were to each other. Michael seemed to notice too, his face heating up under Gerry's hands into a pretty shade of pink that contrasted all that yellow. _

_ Hours later, as Michael drifted into lucidity against Gerry's bare chest, neither would be able to recall who had kissed the other first. _

  
  


This was starting to get ridiculous.

Gerry had woken up (in his own bed, for once in his life) to find the sickeningly cheery yellow door was now in the low ceiling directly above his mattress.

It was still slightly ajar, despite the laws of gravity dictating that it  _ should  _ be wide open- then again, when did an Eldritch Monstrosity ever care about things  _ should  _ be? And, if he was correct, this was probably a spiral entity to boot- making sense would be quite literally the one thing it  _ couldn't _ do. 

The hands-that-weren’t-hands were not currently gripping the door, as they had been the last time he’d seen this insufferable door, but Gerry could see a pair of not-quite eyes peering out of the darkness behind the door, staring directly into Gerry's in a way that made his eyes water as if it had squeezed some kind of metaphysical lemon directly into his eyes. 

He blinked away the tears, draping his arm over his face. "Isn't it a little late for this?"

The not-face behind the door did not smile, rather its mouth started twisting upwards at the corners, teeth and all in a way no mouth should, the whole thing warping into a sick kind of smirk that made Gerry's entire core feel cold and slimy. He wanted to look away. He did not. 

"Why do you keep insisting on fucking with me?"

"... Personal enjoyment, mostly."

Gerry sat bolt upright, staring directly into the eyes of the thing behind the door despite the painful staring-at-the-sun burn deep in his retinas. The incorrect smile widened grotesquely, somehow not reaching its not-eyes in a way that was nothing but nauseating.

"What... what the  _ fuck _ are you talking abou-  _ personal enjoyment?!" _

The thing behind the door nodded, a choking,  _ wrong _ laugh tearing itself out of what could only be its throat.

"I wanted to see you, Book Hunter, see how far you'd could be... pushed."

That voice. That horribly, horribly familiar voice. He knew what that voice was as soon as he heard it, but he also knew it was not being used by its owner. He could feel his eyes tear up from pain beyond the physical, his throat feeling like sandpaper. 

"Who the  _ fuck _ are you?"

"Hmmm.... It's not quite the right question, Gerard Keay, to ask me  _ who.  _ I am not a  _ who... _ I am a  _ what.  _ An  _ it. _ "

The hands were back, gripping the doorframe. Gerry hadn't seen them move. The hands had never not been there. The not-smiling face leaned forward, and Gerry could see the details, skin soft as broken glass, hair a tangle of spiraling curls sharp enough to cut through skin. It(he?) was something that Gerry never wanted to see, would never want to see in his existence, be it brief or eternal. 

The water-warped face of Michael Shelley smiled down upon him, taunting him, and he felt nothing but hatred as it leered, hatred for this creature that dared mock the one person he ever let himself grow close to.

He immediately made a grab for the nearest makeshift weapon, grabbing a box cutter from off his nightstand and pointing it at the door.

Except there was no door.

There never had been a door to begin with, after all.

  
  


_ Michael was wearing Gerry's trenchcoat as he made them french toast for breakfast, the dirty brown starkly contrasting the bouncing yellow curls that ran down its back. _

_ The coat was certainly not made for someone of Michael's build- the sleeves hung baggily around his arms and shoulders, but the coat still managed to be far too short for the man, riding much higher than a trenchcoat ought to. It was a sight that made Gerry smile, genuinely and without the aftertaste of bitterness on his lips. He was, after all, wearing Michael's sunshine jumper, which seemed equally out of place with the rest of him as Michael did with his coat.  _

_ The day before had been rough, but a night of 'stress relief' (as Michael had referred to it) had put both of them in a better mood this morning, even if they had somehow managed to swap outermost clothing upon waking the morning after.  _

_ Breakfast was filling, albeit a little extra crispy (Michael hadn't meant to burn anything, and Gerry supposed he should have warned him about how his stove ran far too hot, but the deed was done and the toast charred around the edges). Conversation was soft and warm as the light of a tea candle, without any of the accompanying fire hazards. Michael, still bright yellow in the face of all the blacks, browns and grays that filled Gerry's very existence, futilely pushing up the sleeves of Gerry's coat every few minutes _

_ Michael, who he once thought naïve, who had refused to cave into despair when things went belly-side up. _

_ Michael, who's smile made Gerry resent his own existence a little bit less whenever he saw it.  _

_ Michael, who was the only person Gerry had ever truly loved. _

  
  


Gerry packed his backpack full of everything he had previously found to be effective against the leitners and the monsters they wrought, as well as a small collection of things that actually brought him calm and happiness- a tag from an alley cat he'd rescued from the dark, a spinning globe-esque trinket he'd been relieved to find had no supernatural connections, an ash-stained sunflower-colored bowtie- to keep him grounded in any sense of reality. 

He didn't need to look up to know his bathroom cabinet had been replaced by an impossibly yellow door.

The door was shut, and the thing behind it was not present at the moment, which was a small relief for Gerry- he didn't know how well he could keep his composure and go through with the new brand of idiocy he had come up with if he had to look at its-  _ his _ face. 

His bag sufficiently packed, he hoisted it over his back, taking a deep breath as he stared down the eyeburningly yellow door. He felt the ball of yarn in his pocket, knowing what he had to do, what he  _ needed _ to do. The knot he tied around the doorknob was tight and true, and he prayed it wouldn't fail him in his journey.

He opened the door.

There was nothing behind it but an empty hallway.

Steeling his nerves, Gerard Keay stepped through the frame.

  
  


_ Michael's breath was soft against his skin, too-long arms draped delicately over him and tangle of hair somehow more chaotic than normal. Gerry savoured it while it lasted, knowing that he would be alone in only a few short hours. _

_ He knew what Gertrude was doing was important, and that as her assistant Michael felt a certain sense of duty to help her, but that didn't mean Gerry couldn't worry about him, or Gertrude's intentions for that matter. The whole thing didn't add up completely- why had she asked Michael specifically to come along with her? He knew he was personally more qualified to stop a ritual, being as it was only slightly removed from his current work for her. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that something was wrong with this. _

_ Michael's breathing drew him back out of his thoughts, bringing him back to the moment. The rise and fall of freckled skin, of ruddy-gold curls on top of it. This time tomorrow, he'd be halfway to Russia with one of the most dangerous monster hunters alive. _

_ But tonight, he was Gerry's, and Gerry could be content with that simple fact. _

  
  


Gerry kept unraveling the yarn ball as he walked, refusing to acknowledge any of his surroundings. Sure, the wallpaper was shifting from awful pattern to awful pattern at such a slow rate that the change didn't register, and yes the mirrors lining the walls reflected a thousand ghastly demises tailored for him and him alone, but he wouldn't give them the time of day. He was in the belly of the beast now, and one wrong step would get him lost forever. Finally, his string ran out, and he knew he had to brave it without aid- he couldn't leave now, not yet, not when he was so infuriatingly _ close _ to the truth.

The voices that had started who-knows-how-long-ago were doing their damndest to pull him from his course, whispering taunts and sweet nothings alike to try and draw him off his path.

_ "You think you're clever, don't you, Book Hunter,"  _ it leered from an unknown direction, it's echo seemingly to radiate out from where he himself was standing.  _ "What do you think you'll find in here? It is… amusing, to watch you try to play Orpheus to someone who's very existence can only be to contradict the idea of his own nonexistence, but it is ultimately… " _ -the voice trailed off, before returning right behind his ear- 

"Futile."

Gerry turned around, coming face to not-face with the thing pretending to be Michael. No, not pretending- unlike the Stranger, the Spiral didn't pretend, it  _ lied _ and it  _ cheated _ and it  _ mislead _ but it never  _ pretended. _ This thing, this horrible thing with its innumerable sharpened curves and rounded angles and a smile who's curved lips took its teeth with it, it  _ was  _ Michael, in as much as it  _ wasn't _ Michael, that it was a monster that happened to be him, that its existence did nothing but bring all the weeks of repressed, indescribable pain to the surface of Gerry's being like a splinter being slowly pulled from his skin. 

He pulled the lighter and a can of hairspray from the outermost pockets of his bag, holding them threateningly. "Not a step closer… not a single fucking step closer-"

The thing-he-wished-wasn't-Michael's smile widened uncomfortably, and Gerry became aware that he was holding a whipped cream can and a box of thumbtacks. He dropped both immediately, and they fell to the ground as the lighter and hairspray they had been the whole time.

He didn't want to admit it, but Gerry felt like crying, out of frustration if nothing else.

"Michael… no, no  _ you _ are  _ not Michael." _

The thing raised an eyebrow, its smile shifting to one side of its face almost cartoonishly. "How very…  _ perceptive  _ of you. No, I'm not Michael- or, I suppose, I am  _ a _ Michael, just… not the Michael you think you knew."

It stepped forward (or perhaps it had always been this close to Gerry, and he simply had failed to notice), and Gerry took a stumbling step back, feeling far more human than he had in a long time, since the day his mother covered his body in eyes one needle-poke at a time, sealing his fate. The thing that was Michael and yet was very obviously  _ not _ looked over him, looking far more human than he had this whole time. Somehow, this made Gerry feel more nauseous than he had during this whole ordeal. Coming face-to-face with someone he'd loved and subsequently lost, even if that face was not currently warped grotesquely into what could only be thought of as a crime against nature and sanity, made his stomach twist, the sharp burn of bile against his throat.

"Why don't you just kill me already," he choked, his body trembling in rage and grief and frustration and all matter of helplessness. "You already tricked me into this place, and you've already gotten me lost here. You  _ won-  _ why are you making this longer, huh? For  _ fun?!"  _

His shaking knees gave out beneath him, and he sunk to the floor, his chest heaving as his mind gave up trying to process everything that had happened to him. "If nothing else… why can't I at least have a quick death?" He mumbled, heavy tears leaving streaks of black mascara on his face as they dripped onto the carpeting below him. "Why must you draw it out like this?"

It stared at him, its face twisted into an expression of confusion, possibly even distress, continuously morphing as if it could not decide what emotion to display on that face-that-wasn't, but that none of them were happy in any way, human or not.

"I… I am going to kill you? I don't think… I…" the thing's body turned into a particularly confused-looking two-dimensional scribble of itself, seemingly drawn across the wallpaper with what was either blood or red wax crayon. "I didn't set out to kill you, no- not yet, at least, I never  _ did _ come to a decision on how long that 'not killing you' would last, but… did you think I was going to kill you?"

It was Gerry's turn to be hurt and confused, staring blankly up at Michael, completely stupefied. The flat drawing became more and more abstract as it considered its words carefully, before suddenly popping back into more dimensions than reality as Gerry knew it should have let him perceive. "If you weren't going to kill me… why… why were you following me?"

It chirped, then laughed, then hummed, and none of those sounds were remotely happy, more…  _ contemplative, _ if this thing that had trapped Gerry could even contemplate anything to begin with. Its eyes focused and unfocused on him over and over, mandelbrot pupils expanding and contracting into impossible size and shape. 

"I suppose it has to do with being forced to be Michael," it finally concluded, placing a not-quite-hand on Gerry's head in a gesture of something that Gerry supposed could have been non-malicious. "Wanting to answer all those pesky little questions zooming around in what is now my head. I'm no watcher, not like you, and certainly not like  _ her…  _ no, I can lie, and I can cheat, but if I wish to watch, I must do so the complicated way."

"You mean… the doors-"

"My way of watching, I suppose, Book Hunter! Keeping tabs on you, providing a point of interest, of  _ curiosity  _ in your life, a tempting possibility for you to explore, a maze for you to solve- I hope you know I dedicated my yellowest door for you, Michael  _ did _ love yellow so…"

"Yeah, well, I'm not Michael" Gerry sniffed, regaining control over himself and furiously rubbing his eyes on his sleeve, "and neither are you."

"Well, yes, I'm  _ not  _ Michael, and if I had any semblance of predictability in my existence I would have never been him in the first place, but I suppose being the very essence of contradiction is enough to…  _ offset _ predictability. Compared to my nature, the very concept of predictability is-"

"-Contradictory?" Gerry guessed, and Michael's face gleefully shifted into a grotesque parody of a human smile.

"See," he giggled, echo bouncing off the walls in no particular way that made any sort of sense, "you're starting to understand."

"But if predictability is contradictory to your nature, and your nature is contradiction… you'd be predictable again, but… but you  _ can't _ be predictable because your nature is contradiction…"

"And thus, my contradictory nature would bring me back to the impossibility of predictability!"

Gerry rubbed his temples, feeling the hallway around him grow ever more dizzying. "I… I think I understand, you are a paradox, aren't you?"

"You're beginning to understand, Book Hunter."

Gerry was suddenly aware of how close that face,  _ Michael's _ face was to his own, and immediately a surge of conflicted emotions coursed through him. What did he feel now, having broken through a facet of the unsolvable puzzle? Disgust? Euphoria? Despair? Bliss? How could he have felt as much fear and grief as he had mere moments prior, and still feel the tension rising between him and  _ it _ , the very thing he had entered this place with the goal of destroying? 

How could his heart flip in both hatred and  _ enthrallment _ when he reached out to brush hair the opposite texture to what it should be, to tuck it behind the ear of something who had been someone? 

How could he, as strong willed and stubborn as a bastard like him could get, melt into butter-softness when the thing pulled him in, the room complicating into sickening fractals under an embrace that was nothing like it should be?

How could the world lose its focus for only a moment, when his lips met the tangled mass of a monster who was somehow both someone he'd lost and the thing he'd lost him to?

He didn't know these questions, much less their answers, as he stepped out the door and into the cloud-grey light off the seaside, the stinging thrum of what was anything but a kiss upon his lips.

Behind him, in the cliff face, a yellow door swung shut.

He turned around, perhaps to bid his goodbyes to it, only to find there was no door there.

There had never been a yellow door, after all.

_ Shame,  _ Gerry thought, though the slightest of smiles hung on his lips.  _ I've grown quite fond of yellow. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you like this fic, consider leaving a kudos, and comment if you have anything you want to say! I love reading through them!


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